Chez

nothing. he didn't hold the ball up terribly well.

that's quite a stat. Everyone involved should be proud of that. Now we need to refocus, reconfigure and attack the next game with as much vigour. We also need to start breaking with a little more intent and ruthlessness. Maybe we don't quite have that pace and quality up front, but our forwards need to do a little more.

Romeu is a class act. He was tremendous up until his injury last season and I have little doubt he will have a good season this.

yeah, that's exactly what John Moss' interpretation was after reviewing it. Walker got his leg in front and Armstrong then took him out. And that interpretation could be argued, however what he ignored during his review was the fact Walker had bumped Armstrong from behind a fraction beforehand which contributed to him taking him out. It was a foul and a penalty. I can see the counter argument, but its a foul.

What a thoroughly enjoyable game to watch. City were below par, no doubt that, but our game plan and execution caused them all sorts if problems and they just never worked out how to deal with it. We forced errors, prevented them from doing what they wanted, and then they started doing silly things in bad areas and we were all of them like a rash. They turned possession over so often and in very bad areas. You just love to see that. That's exactly what we want teams to do. The only negative was our slight lack of confidence when in that final third. We created some great opportunities, but there didn't seen to be genuine belief that they could score. Only when Armstrong dummied and forced the foul for the pen did anyone really commit. That was terrific play, but we needed just a little bit more of that. There is the talent but they need to believe they can murder the likes of Ake every now and then. Loved today. Loved our approach, effort and our our willingness to push high, play through the lines and take City on.

Palace beat them at their place, so it is possible, but we have to be extremely fluent and efficient on the break and then hope they have an off day in front of goal. If you don't score on those few breakaways, you have no chance. Time to give Tella another chance perhaps?

makes sense. Everton ask if a £Xm offer would be considered and we tell them it would need to be doubled or trebled. They go away to consider, and in the mean time we ensure that, should they meet our valuation, we have a viable replacement lined up. Every player has a price. Just good business practice to be prepared to take advantage of a potential `generous' offer.

CBs play there because they ain't good enough to play CM.

Fulham have been bidding for him over the last week or two without joy.

Reading are paying £8.5k a week whilst Chelsea pay £111,500 a week? Blimey. That's a deal and a half.

I'm not keen on attacking fullbacks suddenly being asked to play in midfield. Despite it bing roughly the same area of the pitch, its a different role, often requiring the player to make very different decisions and play with back to goal a lot more. Some fullbacks have made the transition such as Bale, but not sure its ever seamless. I'm with you, lets get the most out of them in their proper position.

Wolves possibly signing Duje Caleta-Car. We will get to see what we could have won.

If you went through all the clubs squads, I wonder how many players would be regarded as `non contributors' and what the total cost/wasted monies spent would be.

Our outgoings were £138m last year (not including transfers). Not sure what percentage of costs is wages, but if its, for the sake of argument, £100m, that means we have a lot of big earners. Chelsea are well known for paying youth team fellas an absolute fortune (£30k+), so with a wage increase, Livramento could be on a fair whack. I agree, if we were paying Lemina £60k a week, why wouldn't Armstrong get that too. We may have reduced our wage bill, but our costs went up by £7.2m, assuming we are paying the interest on the loan at the end of the year.

I just wonder if the relationship between Forster and the club is not terribly great.

The thought process will be to buy a younger (cheaper) keeper and if he is good enough, he replaces McCarthy sooner or later. That seems to be the new model. Buy players and promote. That said ,we have seen young players get that promotion quickly already. All we can hope for is the new `young' keeper is the nuts and he has to be picked.

If McCarthy's form is not good and then Forster comes in, it will look terrible that the former has the new deal and the latter is leaving. Ralph isn't going to drop McCarthy, unless he absolutely has to - whatever that means - as it will make the decision look terrible.

I guess the question is, would it be possible to sign two keepers, both better than McCarthy, with next to no funds? Nice to have a clean slate, but equally, having a `steady' keeper at the club is n bad thing, assuming McCarthy can be considered steady.

Very strange decision for the manager to (effectively) say that Forster is out of here next summer when he may need to rely on him this season. Why not keep your powder dry? Maybe Forster informed the club he wanted to leave, thus he wasn't revealing anything Forster didn't already know. Ralph obviously feels McCarthy proved himself last season. Not sure I agree.

I seem to recall Reading `upping' the amount they wanted on the back of his successful loan, and Nik Nak didn't want to play ball. I might be confusing this with the Matt Philips negotiations though. It seemed to be that Reading didn't really want him. He hardly played the following season. Mostly coming off the bench, all be it at a higher level than we were at. Real shame we could not sign him. Still have fond memories of him terrorising Orient in the second half of our game at their place. One of the best/entertaining second halves I have ever seen. Loved watching him, but I guess Chamberlain filled the void brilliantly.

lose Long and we get a Minamino sort

I guess Tella fits that bill? Perhaps we will try to turn Broja into a permanent deal too.

Agreed. I think we still need a high quality, attacking player, in the Minamino mould, a flair player who can dribble and create.

the club has spent more than it can afford...hence the need for a £70m loan. Gao has taken no dividend yet.

maybe the man marking is so poor it appears zonal or maybe its a hybrid. Its hard to stick with players like glue is their movement is decent. Often defenders get left for dead and its just good fortune that the cross is not to their man otherwise they will look like mugs.